


Mamihlapinatiopai

by theTARDISdaughter



Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Idiots in Love, It maybe is a littel angsty if you have enough immagination, M/M, Mutual Pining, Pining, Sorry they don't actually get together, they're idiots
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-20
Updated: 2019-08-20
Packaged: 2020-09-18 19:55:53
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,137
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20318629
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/theTARDISdaughter/pseuds/theTARDISdaughter
Summary: Aziraphale and Crowley both really want the other one to make a move first. They just pine a lot. They're idiots.





	Mamihlapinatiopai

They sat at the Ritz, somehow sitting at the same table as always without making a reservation. That wasn't really the weird thing, miraculous-yes but not weird. The weird thing was how the staff seemed to not have picked up on it yet. Or at least they never mentioned it. But then again they never scolded them anymore for not making a reservation, telling them they were lucky that a table was miraculously free (with which they would have been right) so maybe they did pick up on it. 

But never the less here they sat. For the 4th time this month already. Aziraphale was just finishing his desert, revelling in the taste of the last bite. They talked about something, it didn't really matter, maybe a book that Aziraphale found somewhere or maybe a shared memory of a person long dead and a time long gone. 

What was important was that Aziraphale talked and Crowley listened, leaning on his arms slightly leaning towards the other. What mattered was that they were here together. They might have denied that if you had asked them, saying it was for the food or the social interaction or their shared history. But really all of those things, while being nice, were mere a bonus to what they really got out of this. The company of the other. 

Crowley watched Aziraphale talk, hiding his eyes behind his sunglasses and hoping to hide his comfort in the situation behind it too. He really mustn’t show his affection he told himself, while also not really making the extra effort of not leaning in when Aziraphale spoke and not spending every second of his free time with the angel (Not that he had anything but free time anymore) and not constantly making up excuses to be around the angel. 

It was for safety of course, that they spend so much time together. Two were stronger than one after all (Crowley blatantly ignored the fact that if it really came down to it they wouldn’t stand a chance, he really couldn’t stand that thought). But even if he might spend a lot of time with the angel and even if that was the only time that mattered to him and even if he was miserable whenever the angel wasn’t around, that didn’t mean Crowley would ever do anything about any of it. Really he had spent 6000 years ignoring the hell out of his feelings (What self-respecting demon had feelings anyway) and he wouldn’t change that now. 

Anyways the angel probably didn’t feel the same about Crowley anyway. He had stated more than once that they were enemies and enemies don’t like each other. And even if he did, it was how Aziraphale had said before: they were an angel and a demon, even if they were both disregarded from their respective head offices. It would be disastrous if someone were to make a move, wouldn't it. Crowley shifted a little closer to Aziraphale. Yes absolutely disastrous.

Aziraphale talked and Crowley listened. Aziraphale liked how the demon always bent his way a little when he told him something. Not that he would admit that. But it was nice having someone who listened to you, who didn't disregard your interests. But that was all, he needed someone who would listen so he didn't have to talk to himself. It was definitely not that he kept talking to see Crowley loosen up a bit tilt his body in a way that made it not so unbelievable that he used to be a snake, see him get comfortable enough for that little smile to crawl on his lips and lighten up his face. 

No that would be ludicrous. He shouldn't think things like that. Demon and Angel he reminded himself. Yes they were enemies who ate together occasionally and helped each other out now and then and maybe averted the apocalypse together but really what was that if not helping each other. 

And really would it be so bad if Aziraphale liked Crowley? I mean the whole love thy enemy was a big thing in the realms of heaven. He was a being of love after all, it would be against his nature to hate anything. It was really just the general love of everything that the Almighty had given the angels that also applied to Crowley since he was a part of the big everything. No more than that. Anything else would have been dangerous after all, She saw everything didn't She, or was that Santa Claus? Irrelevant since there was nothing to see anyhow.

Crowley shifted closer to Aziraphale and he responded despite himself (or maybe not despite himself but just because he wanted to) by shifting a little closer too and gesturing wildly between them to emphasize whatever he was saying. 

After they paid the check and left for the Bentley parked outside Aziraphale asked: "Do you fancy coming over to the bookshop? I have some bottles of excellent wine that would be wasted if drunken alone." Crowley's eyes lit up, not that Aziraphale or anyone else would have noticed, since he was wearing sunglasses. And Crowley really didn't want anyone to notice either. He had a reputation as a demon. And he definitely did not want the angel to see, he might get the wrong idea (or the right one). "Sure, don't see why not, alcohol is always an answer." He responded sure to emphasize the reason that was completely irrelevant and not mention the actual reason why he accepted. 

The drive went as it always did, Crowley purposefully ignoring the traffic regulations and Aziraphale complaining helplessly about it. Arriving at the bookshop Crowley almost hesitated, waiting for a sign that the offer didn't stand anymore waiting for a goodbye and a wave off but Aziraphale just headed straight for the bookshop, convinced that Crowley was right behind him, never even bothering to stop the conversation they held during the car ride (even though it had been continuously interrupted by their driving bickering). When Crowley didn't answer to what Aziraphale had just said he stopped and turned around, seeing Crowley still at the Bentley. "Are you not coming, dear?" he said more anxious that he would care to admit. For Crowley this was more than enough of an invitation and he left the Bentley for the Angel and his Bookshop.

Inside they continued the conversation and their little pretend game. Pretending to not be interested (not very good at that one), pretending to not see the others interest (they were frustratingly good at that one) and pretending that they would be fine if the relationship stayed like this for another few thousand years. Although they both knew that they might not have that time or the patience for that, as a matter of fact. And they might have won some time and some freedom since the Armageddidn’t but with that they had lost an important excuse as to why they really shouldn’t make a move. 

Crowley wasn’t dumb. He might have been an idiot and at times very incompetent but he wasn’t dumb. And he wasn’t blind he saw, of course, how the angel reacted to him. Both the loving, longing (wasn’t that a sin?) looks and the happiness that danced across his face when Crowley did the exact right things (buy him food, listen, be interested, occasionally do him a favour, be less mean than expected, save him, save his books, the little things). But Crowley also saw the rejection, the fear, the apprehension when Crowley moved to fast or said something that reminded the angel of their positions. 

So if Crowley wanted this to last he would have to be patient, as he always had been, and hope that the angel received his messages of love and affection (after all he should be able to sense love shouldn’t he?) and decided to respond to them. And oh how he longed for Aziraphale to respond. 

Aziraphale was not dumb either. He was actually quite intellectual. And even if he might not be the most up to date on things 21st Century he was very up to date on feelings of affection and ways of showing them even in this time and age. He knew about emojis and sexting and dating apps and kinks and slut shaming and Fuckboys. He was very well informed on everything love, lust and sex related. He had a membership in a gay club and was a big defender of ace and bi visibility and cared for the decriminalising of sex work quite a lot. And yes of course he knew about pornography, unlike some other angels who didn’t seem to take the whole ‘being of love’ very seriously. 

So of course he picked up on Crowley’s love language ages ago. And yes, he could sense his love, it was hard to miss after all. It would have been hard to miss even if he could not have felt it like a 6th sense. The dear boy was not as subtle as he wished to be, despite his best efforts. So technically he knew about Crowley’s affection for him. 

But it was one thing to know something but a different thing to believe something. But wasn’t believing his whole thing as an angel? Well that all got way more complicated as soon as Crowley came into the picture. Asking questions Aziraphale could not answer, questioned choices Aziraphale had no control over whether he liked them or not, sparking feelings he really should not be having, making him feel at home in a way heaven never managed. Believing and Crowley did not go well together in Aziraphale’s mind. 

But even if he were to believe a demon were to be able to love an angel and even if he were to believe that the demon was Crowley and the angel was him, knowing and believing something was still something very different than acting on all of this. Because even if in some hypothetical (Aziraphale was good with those) he were to love a demon and that demon were to love him back, how could he tell him. 

Really, angels were not the kind of beings that went out there and started engaging with people, asking things of them, taking up space in someone else’s world. Angels were silent string-pullers, they blessed people, gave people strength to act on their good ideas. They were givers. If someone asked something of an angel it was very likely that they would receive. Angels gave love and hope and messages and blessings and strength and such but they did not ask for things. That was not very angel-like. They did not ask questions and they did not ask favours. They did not ask for comfort and they did not ask for love. 

So Aziraphale would not ask. He was on thin ice anyway and under the ice was no water but a long fall and then boiling sulphur and to be completely honest he was not keen on crossing the line that would break the ice that would at last make the Almighty see what a bad angel he really was. If loving a demon would not cross that line, asking for a demons love surely would. So he really needed Crowley to initiate the whole thing. Because if he was asked he could give and really who could say anything about that. 

So he would just hope for Crowley to at last toughen up a bit and ask him already. Really any amount of asking would be enough he could work with about anything. He just really couldn’t initiate. 

So they stayed how they had been for 6000 years. Keeping each other closer than anyone else. Trusting each other more than anyone else. But keeping a distance. Enough to fool certain supernatural entities. And maybe themselves. And maybe each other. They stayed where they were, across from each other at the table and on separate sofas in Aziraphale’s Bookshop. Maybe moving closer an inch or so every century. And maybe if they had another 6000 years they would just naturally drift so close to each other, that that distance would be gone. But who knows how much time they had left? God probably, with Her ineffable plan and Her unknowable playing rules. But you really couldn’t ask her now could you. So maybe they should, in Aziraphale’s words ‘get a bit of a wiggle on’ and cross that distance now. They might not make it otherwise. 

But for now they sat in Aziraphale’s bookshop and drank whine and pretended not to be in love with each other. Hoping that the other would see through their bullshit and see how desperately they wished for the other to know and to do something about it.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you so much for reading this!
> 
> This is also on [Tumblr](https://thetardisdaughter.tumblr.com/post/186519177758/mamihlapinatiopai)


End file.
